Effects of Building Occupancy on Indicators of Energy Efficiency

The potential to reduce energy consumption in buildings is high. The design phase of the building is very important. In addition, it is vital to understand how to measure the energy efficiency in the building operation phase in order to encourage the right efficiency efforts. In understanding the bu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 5; p. 628
Main Authors Huovila, Aapo, Tuominen, Pekka, Airaksinen, Miimu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.05.2017
Subjects
building energy efficiency
Buildings
Design engineering
Energy consumption
Energy efficiency
Energy management
Energy measurement
Indicators
Office buildings
Power efficiency
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Summary:The potential to reduce energy consumption in buildings is high. The design phase of the building is very important. In addition, it is vital to understand how to measure the energy efficiency in the building operation phase in order to encourage the right efficiency efforts. In understanding the building energy efficiency, it is important to comprehend the interplay of building occupancy, space efficiency, and energy efficiency. Recent studies found in the literature concerning energy efficiency in office buildings have concentrated heavily on the technical characteristics of the buildings or technical systems. The most commonly used engineering indicator for building energy efficiency is the specific energy consumption (SEC), commonly measured in kWh/m2 per annum. While the SEC is a sound way to measure the technical properties of a building and to guide its design, it obviously omits the issues of building occupancy and space efficiency. This paper studies existing energy efficiency indicators and introduces a new indicator for building energy efficiency which takes into account both space and occupancy efficiency.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en10050628